How to reset the arduino visual studio interface

by Visual Micro 1. October 2011 19:11

October 2015 - To uninstall the "Extension" version of Visual Micro, open the Ide and click "Tools>Extensions & Updates". Visual Micro can be uninstalled from the list then re-start the Ide.

The following applies to the older version of Visual Micro which is now obsolete ...

NOTE: In Visual Micro versions 1308.18+ click "Tools>Visual Micro>Reset User Interface" instead of following this guide 

The old way or for uninstall ...

After installation sometimes some Visual Micro menu commands do not appear or Visual Micro menu /buttons commands appear multiple times. In this case you should close Visual Studio and re-start after ensuring that all "devenv.exe" processes have been terminated using "Windows Task Manager".

If the problem persists you can force the addin to repeat the Visual Studio procedure.

This is done by performing a reset on the addin/plugin as described below. A "reset" removes all Visual Micro commands from Visual Studio so that after a clean start all the commands are setup in the correct way. If you have uninstalled the addin then after the re-start the commands will not re-appear.

Visual Studio (devenv.exe) provides a standard '/resetaddin' addin switch that can be used to easily reset or remove any addin. You will see in the example below that the /resetaddin switch required a key to identify the addin that is to be reset. The Visual Micro key is 'Visual.Micro.Visual.Studio.Arduino.Helper'

To reset the arduino addin, run visual studio (devenv.exe) with the same paramaters as your "Visual Studio" application short cut passing the following /resetaddin command.

[path to devenv.exe] /resetaddin Visual.Micro.Visual.Studio.Arduino.Helper

Atmel Studio [path to atmelstudio.exe] /resetaddin Visual.Micro.Visual.Studio.Arduino.Helper

If the above fails then please follow the guide below:-

Depending on your security settings you might need to run Visual Studio as Administrator to either install or reset the arduino addin

  • Close all IDE instances.
  • Open a Visual Studio .NET Command Prompt ("Run...", "Programs", "Visual Studio .NET", "Visual Studio .NET Tools", "Visual Studio .NET Command Prompt")
  • Enter "devenv.exe /resetaddin Visual.Micro.Visual.Studio.Arduino.Helper" (without the quotes) and press ENTER
  • Close all IDE instances.
  • NB: Microsoft have changed visual studio. The command  prompt might now be available in the microsoft power tools extension 

    If you have uninstalled the addin then a reset will clean the Visual Studio interface removing customisations the addin makes during setup. After uninstall only the two arduino toolbars will remain which can be manually removed from Visual Studio using each tool bars' the right click context menu.